The Magnificat Advent Companion

[Katydid]

HE COMES! THE KING OF GLORY
The Magnificat Advent Companion

Advent is that sacred season of anticipation and expectation in which

we come to terms with the deepest yearning of our soul - a yearning

fulfilled only in Jesus Christ. As we wait in longing for the coming of

the Christ child at Christmas, we turn over to him all the false

satisfactions - the compromises - of our life. To live Advent is to live


in the awareness of a Presence that changes us. Our Advent

preparation is marked by vigilance - custody of the heart in which we

keep our soul fixed on the Lord. For what we see incarnate in the

infant Jesus we desire for ourselves: purity, innocence, childlikeness

restored. In the birth of this child we know the promise of our own

spiritual rebirth.

This rich spiritual companion will accompany you like a beloved friend

through the four weeks of Adven with poignant scriptural reflections for

each day of the season. You will also find a wealth of meditative

prayers, essays, poetry, an examination of conscience, and a unique

feature: the Advent Stations. If you long for the nearness of God in

your life, this invaluable little booklet promises to bring your ever

closer to the one who promised: "I will be with you always" (Mt 28:20)

[Katydid]

She Gives Us Time

She is wise
who gives us time
to mingle water
with the wine,
to seek the eyes
that face the blind,
to love the Word
that wakes the rhyme.

She is wise
who gives us time
to trace our faith's
unbroken line,
to make the way
for grace to climb,
to sight the star
and heed the sign.

She is wise
who gives us time
to travel space
a child to find.

RITA A. FLANSBURG-SIMMONDS

[flappo]

post this in non

i need something to delete

[Katydid]

EDITORIAL
Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
WHENEVER WE ATTEND A WEDDING, a graduation, or a First Communion, something happens to us. The new beginning that we witness in the life of the person we go to honor makes us reflect on the status of our own situation. It makes us wonder about the meaning of our life - where we're at and where we're going. We realize we need occasions like these.

For what these events introduce into our lives is NEWNESS, and the satisfaction of that newness fills us with a desire to experience it always. Is that possible? deep down we are certain that we HAVE BEEN MADE for this newness. This promise of newness, of fresh beginnings leading to a supremely happy ending is identical with the very purpose of our life.

Something inside us fights against whatever cynicism we may feel. "The human desires for joy," wrote Saint Thomas Aquinas, "is stronger than the fear of sadness."

But the NEWNESS is not something we can concoct. Like life's momentous events, the newness we need must come to us an an Event. The newness idential with our meaning CAN happen always; it does.

For that NEWNESS has a human face: JESUS CHRIST> The event of the Incarnation addresses all our worry and wonder about life's meaning. We live the season of Advent letting our llives be determined "by the continual newness that sets us in the eternal" (Lugi Giussani).

[flappo]

you daft old bat

[Katydid]

Advent and Christmas in Spanish-Speaking Lands

James Monti

The touching Spanish Christmas carol, LA VIRGEN LAVE PANALES, tells of the Blessed Virgin Mary washing the Christ Child's swaddling clothes as "little brids sing." the Advent and Christmas customs of Spain and Latin America are permeated with a tender devotion to the Holy Family, manifested by the most cherished Christmas furnishing in Hispanic homes, the che`che, known by the Spanish name, NACIMIENTO. The Spanish have loved their cre`ches for centuries. Late medieval accounts tell of a huge nativity diorama erected in the sanctuary of Valencia's cathedral, streching fromt he choir to the pulpit. In contemporary Spain, the family NACIMIENTO is made in the form of a cave fashioned with cork bark, aforned with moss, ivy, and holly. The manager with its clay or wooden figures of the Holy Family is set in an expensive landscape of desert and palm groves, dotted with windmills and castles.

[Katydid]

Posadas
In Mexico, the family Nacimiento needs to be ready by the night of December 16, as it is the centerpiece of a distinctively Latin American Advent tradition, the POSADAS. In the late 16th. century, Augustinian missionaries in the Mexican village of Acolnman introduced the custom of the Posadas ("inns"), a novena for the last nine days fo Advent commemorating the journey of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. In 1587 the Augustinians' superior in Acolnman obtained for Mexico a papal decree authorizing a sereis of nine votive. Masses from December 16 to Decembe 24 to be celebrated in the church vestibules. During the novena, dramatic representations of the nativity also took place in the vestibules, enacted apart from, but in association with, the novena Masses. In the years that followed, the novena Masses, known as the MISAS DE AGUINALDO ("Masses of the Christmas Gift"), continued in the churches, celebrated around five in the morning, while the associated dramatic representations, the POSADAS, shifted into the homes ofthe Mexican faithful. The Aguinaldo Masses also become popular elsewhere in Latin America. It is the custom in some places to wake the people for these early morning Masses by sending through the streets a small band to play Christmas carols about half an hour beforehand.

[Katydid]

Pin~ata
The Posadas takes place each evening from December 16 to December 24. The family assembles in the living room or a parlor, where the Nacimiento rests upon a small altar adorned with pine brances and moss. The Father leads the family in reciting a rosary in which each decade ends with the singing of a hymn to Jesus and Mary. Most of the family then embarks upon a candlelight procession through the home, led by two of the children carrying the cre`che statues of Mary and Joseph. Two or three of the family remain in the living room to recite the litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, while those in the procession respond from afar to each versicle, "PRAY FOR US." The procession, a symbolic reenactment of the Holy Family's search for shelter in Bethlehem, makes a stop at the door of each room in the house, asking to be admitted. Only the last door opens to them, the door to the room where the procession began.

Upon re-entering the room, the children place the two statues in the Nacimiento, and concluding hymns are sung. Afterwards, all of the children take turns striking a colorful hollow clay figurine filled with sweets, hung from the ceiling. The Pin`ata. The Pin`ata was originally a medieval Italian custom of Lent for the first Sunday after Ash Wednesday, spreading later to Spain. The Spanish missionaries who brought the Pin`ata to Mexico imparted to it a catechetical significance. The tinsel-adorned clay figureines itself represents the world with its deceits and vanities. The blindfold worn by the participants symbolize faith, and the stick for striking the Pin`ata represents the power of virtue that shatters the world's deceptive pleasures , thereby disseminating truth and other spiritual gifts, which are won by faith and perseverance.

On the ninth and final evening of the Posadas novena, the family procession takes place shortly before Christmas midnight Mass. A figure of the infant Jesus is added to the procession this night, carried by a young boy of the family, and place dby him in the crib of the Nacimiento at the conclusion.

[Katydid]

Noche Buena
In Spain and Latin America, Christmas Eve is known as NOCHE BUENA, the "GOOD NIGHT." In the American southwest, this night is illuminated by rows of special lights outside the people'shomes, the LUMINARIAS, candles mounted in sand-filled paper lanterns, so as to light the way for the Christ Child. Midnight Mass is known as the MISA DEL GALLO, the "Mass of the COCK," a title derived from the early medieval custom of celebrating this mass around the hour of "COCKCROW" (3:00 a.m.). In New Mexico, the faithful would come forward after Mass to kiss the feet of a statue of the Christ Child held by the parish priest.

The idea of a Christmas dramatization of the shepherd's visit to the manger, traceable to 12th. century France, had come to Spain by the 14th. century, appearing first in a breviary of Toledo, with altar boys cast as the shepherds. Mexico's popular Christmas dramas, LOS PASTORES ("THE SHEPHERDS"), were introduced soon after the first missionaries arrived. In 1527 the earliest known Mexican Christmas play was presented in Cuernavaca. The Jesuits, who came to Mexican LOS PASTORES. In their fully developed form, these plays depict the journey of the shepherds to the stable fo Betlehem as a pilgrimage fraught with vicissitudes to be overcome, including confrontations with demons representing the 7 deadly sins. These conflicts culminate in a battle between the archangel SAINT MICHAEL and the devil.

Hispanic Christmas festivities climax in the celebration of the Epiphany. On the eve of this solemnity, the children put out their shoes in the expectation that the three Magi will visit their home and fill the shoes with small presents and sweets. In Puerto Rico, the children place cut grass under their beds to feed the camels of the Magi, and in Mexico vessels of water are prepared for the thirsty desert beasts. Spanish children leave out cookies and a glass of wine for the three kings.

[Nickdfresh]

Katydid must pay for this spamming!

Katydid, did you spam you son's house with this crap? Is that why your daughter-in-law kicked your ass back to your trailer?

[Katydid]

"Nowhere to rest his head"

There is in Mexico a highly venerated nineteenth-century statue fot he Christ Child, "The Holy Child of Good Fortune" peacefully slumbering upon a most unusual pillow; a human skull, the symbol of death. It is a stark testament to why we celebrate Christmas, for Christ has come to CONQUER SIN AND DEATH.

[ALinChainz]

Why is this in feedback Katy?

Because you know Sarge and Panamark aren't around to dump it?

And when they find out how you've been threatening the site again, do you think they'll appreciate it?

[ALinChainz]

What a bitter old hag ... your own family can't stand you ...

What makes you think we can ...

[Katydid]

Advent Penance Service
Father Richard Veras

GREETING

Advent is a time of waiting, longing, and begging. It is a time to pray, "Come, Lord Jesus."

We look forward to celebrating the first coming of Jesus at Christmas. We look forward with hope to the second coming of Jesus in his glory. We seek out Jesus here and now in the Mass, when he comes to us in the Eucharist. We seek out Jesus in the people and events of our lives, when he comes to us in ordinary ways. Today, as we examine our conscience and confess our sins, we ask Jesus to come to us in his mercy. For Jesus offers us a true experience of salvation here and now throught he forgiveness of our sins.

Hymn
"O come, O Come, Emmanuel"

Opening Prayer
God our Father, out of loving obedience to you, and out of love for all that you created through him, your only begotten Son became human and dwelt among us. He was born as a baby, just like us. He went through the joys and sufferings fo living, just like us. He suffered and died and rose again, just for us. Give us hearts of repentance, so that we may weep for the one who was pierced for our sins, and rejoice as our sins and impurities are washed away. We ask this through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Scripture Passage

The word of the Lord came to the Prophet Zechariah, speaking of the deliverance of God's people: "on that day, the Lord will shield the inhabitants fo Jerusalem, and the weakling among them shall be like David on that day, and the house of David godlike, like an angel of the LORD before them. On that day I will seek the destruction of all nations that come against Jerusalem.

I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; and they shall look on him whom they have thrust through,and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a firstborn.

On that day there shall be open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a fountain to purify from sin and uncleanness." (Zec 12:8-10; 13:1)

Scripture Meditation

"The weakling among them shall be like David." Who is weaker than an infant without shelter? This baby, in these meager surrounding is like David? Yes, he is like David and like us in all things but sin.

This baby is like a king! Yes, the unimaginable king of an unimaginable kingdom.

WHat is this kingdom? What will it be like? WIll it be like the house of David?

In one sense, yes, for we who follow this newborn king, this descendant of David, arenow members of the house of David.

"...and the house of David will be godlike." How can this be? We are sinners! How can our unity on earth be like God on earth? Because this new house of David, this unity, is the Church, and the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the continuation of Christ's presence here and now. His method ios to become present in the least likely of places, in a stable...on a cross...and through the faces of sinners...but sinners who have been transformed by his saving love. Sinners who have discovered that this king is truly with us and dwells among us as we are.

Our Lady must have done all she could to make those poor surroundings beautiful for her Son. Let us beg that we poor sinners who make up the Church may sincerely confess our sins and hav eour sins andimpurities washed away, so that we, the Church, may become a place where his presence is acknowledged and welcomed.

Examination of Conscience

For the times that I forget that I need a Savor, and arrogantly conceive of myself as sufficient to myself, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

For the times that I do not believe Jesus and instead give in to the lie of perceiving God the Father as being indifferent or hostile to my well-being, "Come Lord Jesus."

For the times that I trust myself-pitying accusations more than the Father's love, "Come Lord Jesus!"

For the times that I desecrate the presence of Christ by making my own opinions, my own criteria, or my own likes and dislikes the measure for measuring circumstances of life and other people, "Come Lord Jesus!"

For the times I have shunned the presence of Christ, whether it be his sacramental presence or his presence throught he people he puts in my life, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

FOR THE TIMES I HAVE BLASPHEMED THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST THROUGH USING OTHER HUMAN BEINGS AS THINGS THAT I CAN MANIPULATE OR USE FOR MY OWN SELFISH ENDS, "COME, LORD JESUS!"

For the times I have disregarded the will of Christ thorugh abuse of those things he has given to me for the buidling up of his kingdom, "Come Lord Jesus!"

FOR THE TIMES THAT I JUSTIFY MY SINFULNESS, AND THUS TREAT GOD'S MERCY WITH DISDAIN, "Come Lord Jesus!"

Closing Prayer

God our Father, open to us your promised fountain of mercy, the Word made flesh to wash our sins and impurities away. Prepare us to welclome our Savior who dwells among us. Pour forth, we beseech you, Father, yoru grace into our hearts, that we to whom the incarnation of Christ your Son is to be made known anew throught he sacrament of confession may be his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection through the same Christ our Lord.

[ALinChainz]

Guess we'll have to pay a visit to your sites huh?

Get ready for Hell ...